I don’t disagree with your points. I think you’ll find that my next post (coming in the next couple of days) will answer at least some (not all!) of your questions.

Michael

Ironically, a few years ago when I participated in one of your ‘future of journalism’ exercises at CUNY the group started with a newspaper newsroom with more than 100 people and by the end had chopped it down to a dozen or so. Worked in theory… turns out it works in real life as well.

In addition — not in contradiction — to the points you make, there is another reason why the decline in the size of the workforce in the news industry is not an accurate metric for changes in journalistic activity.

In its industrial phase, editorial staffs at news organizations were engaged in a bundle of activities, many of which are not properly news and need not be performed by journalists when the news delivery medium is unbundled.

In newspapers, can the comics or the crossword or Sudoku be called journalism? Is compiling movie listings or stock prices or sports box scores journalism? Is rewriting press releases or offering free space for public relations journalism?

TV news is burdened by similar dead weight of non-journalistic activity. On local news, is the five-day weather forecast or the traffic helicopter update or the sports highlight reel really journalism? Think of the Today Show or Good Morning America: when they host a pop concert or offer a cooking how-to or stage a fashion show with Marie Claire or InStyle, are they really practicing journalism? What is the difference between an actor’s appearance to plug a movie on Tonight or the Late Show compared with his appearance on Today or GMA? Can we seriously say that the former interview is show business and the latter is journalism? Of course not.

Unbundling newscasts and newspapers into their constituent parts for online distribution will surely mean that many fewer journalists will be employed than in their precursor bundled industries. Yet it will also surely mean that journalists will be freed to do what they are supposed to — deliver the news — rather than being conduits for listings, recreation, PR stunts, information, show business and service features.

Their employment may go down but the percentage of their time spent on journalism proper will go up.

As you’ve discussed before, Journalism is no longer the product of an institution. It’s really become an individual pursuit. The ‘amount’ of journalistic output has likely dramatically increased since 1990 – probably more than inverse to the number of ‘professional’ journalism jobs.

So it’s likely that there is probably an increase in overall journalism production, and that is the good news in our society today. It’s distribution model has changed more dramatically, as has its monetization. It’s been democratized and decentralized. But who’s making enough money doing it with the smaller audiences? Will be interesting to see what happens in the post-industry as it develops.

Unfortunately our manufacturing base has not shifted in a similar fashion. For while journalism has blossomed from samizdat-like capabilities of bloggers, there has not been a parallel innovation in manufacturing. Those jobs are overseas and it’s not easy to bring them back. We can’t offshore most journalism.

I think you should use a different word than “noneconomy” for volunteers. The non-money economy is also much, much bigger than volunteerism, from parenting your children to making your own meal instead of eating out.

Alvin and Heidi Toffler really get into this in their latest work “Revolutionary Wealth.” They argue (successfully I feel) that the money economy freely rides the coattails of the non-money economy.

If you haven’t read the book I strongly urge you to do so. I think you’ll find it bolsters your positions a great deal, and will add even more nuance to understanding what’s happening in media today.

http://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Wealth-created-change-lives/dp/038552207X